


faded in my last song

by psychosomatic (fullsunflower)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Gen, M/M, Smoking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27571948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullsunflower/pseuds/psychosomatic
Summary: Jeonghan looks up at Wonwoo and wonders when he'd become so grown.
Relationships: Jeon Wonwoo & Yoon Jeonghan, Jeon Wonwoo/Yoon Jeonghan
Comments: 1
Kudos: 22





	faded in my last song

**Author's Note:**

> i caught wonhan disease :/ i wrote this instead of studying for midterms a few weeks ago so please enjoy the product of my procrastination.
> 
> cw smoking, recreational drug use 
> 
> there's also mentioned past jeongcheol and unrequited soonwoo if you're not into that

The night’s a bit hazy by the time Jeonghan decides to self-isolate. He must’ve been drunk, or high, or maybe a bit of both when he slips his fingers into Jihoon’s pocket. If Jihoon notices anything, he doesn’t say.

That could’ve been hours ago. Jeonghan’s not sure because his phone’s dead when he’s woken up by an insistent banging against the door. He’d been sleeping in the tub then, crick in his neck. He trips on his way out.

“What the fuck,” is all Jeonghan’s cotton mouth could muster as he’s nearly bowled over by Wonwoo charging through the doorway.

Jeonghan’s hip knocks into the sink as Wonwoo crumples onto the floor like his strings have been cut.

So now Jeonghan’s no longer lonesome, Wonwoo sharing his space. Technically it’s Jihoon’s space – Jihoon’s bathroom, which he keeps under lock and key – but surely Jihoon doesn’t mind that Jeonghan’s there. Anyway, Wonwoo’s sometimes a bit of a leech like this, taking up space even though he may as well not be there. At least it’s quiet, because Wonwoo’s always quiet, but far from peaceful with the bass in the walls and rats gnawing on Jeonghan’s brain.

“Bad trip?” Jeonghan asks. He thinks he ought to, considering Wonwoo’s ragged breaths filtering from where his head is tucked against his knees.

Jeonghan’s mind’s so fuzzy that he dunks his face through a stream of cold water to clear it. Swallows down a few gulps while he’s at it. The water is biting against his tongue, so metallic that he may as well be tasting blood.

His hands grip the ceramic as he turns to face Wonwoo, who’s just breathing in and out, in and out. Steadier now, hardly a cause for concern, but Wonwoo’s all curled up like a fetus and Jeonghan supposes that he should probably be the adult in this situation.

“Wonwoo?” Jeonghan prods. Wonwoo doesn’t respond like a petulant child, and Jeonghan recognizes himself to not be in the proper state to babysit. His patience is as thinly dispersed as the air in this box of a room, now being taken in by one too many pairs of lungs; the lack of it is asphyxiating.

Jeonghan clambers clumsily over the lip of the tub and breaks a nail prying the window open in haste. The first brush of air feels rewarding across his skin, the second punishing. Inevitably, Wonwoo complains.

“It’s fucking freezing, hyung.”

Jeonghan should to be relieved that Wonwoo’s responsive at all. Still, he rolls his eyes, doesn’t do a single thing but rest his chin on his forearms on the windowsill. The cold is painfully sobering, the howling wind competing with the reverberating walls. If he sticks his head out far enough, he could almost forget where he is.

The moon is full and pretty, far too bright to look at directly. Jeonghan envies it, by virtue of it being out there, him in here. The moon winks as a crow flies by, and Jeonghan decides he’s had enough. He turns back inside.

“Why are you here, Wonwoo?”

It’s dim, even after Jeonghan’s eyes adjust. There’s not much to make out in the shadows. Just a blotch of darkness in the shape of defeat, slumped against the wall, looking right at him.

“Why are _you_?”

/

Wonwoo smokes now, apparently. He just shrugs when Jeonghan asks _since when,_ and offers the crumpled box in Jeonghan’s direction, cigarette dangling between his teeth. Jeonghan watches his lips close around it, cheeks hollowing and chest expanding around his inhale.

Jeonghan lights up under Wonwoo’s cupped palm and takes a drag, grateful that Wonwoo also likes menthols. Jeonghan feels cleansed, cold all over.

The wind is unforgiving. Jeonghan blows smoke out the window; the wind blows it right back in.

“Jihoon’s going to kill us,” Wonwoo says conversationally, like there’s nothing but smoke and a stream of moonlight hanging in between them.

Jeonghan laughs, a desert in his throat.

Ash piles up on the windowsill and Jeonghan slowly suffocates from the reek.

/

Jeonghan’s normally content with the reticence that Wonwoo brings, but the walls still vibrate and it’s too much of a reminder that it’s never enough for him to sit and stew. Soon they’ll be out of cigarettes and forced to confront what they’re hiding from beyond these four walls.

Wonwoo beats them to it, confession slipping through his lips like smoke. “Soonyoung left with someone.”

Wonwoo’s always been difficult to look at head-on. Sometimes Jeonghan does anyway, sees how much he can take. He does now, and it doesn’t take long for nausea to set in. Jeonghan swallows it down, tamps his cigarette down on the soap holder.

Wonwoo’s skin, Wonwoo’s lips are tinted blue when Jeonghan pulls him in. He tastes like smoke, but he’s warm and pliant against Jeonghan’s mouth. It feels all wrong. Teeth too sharp, too tall. But there’s a familiarity in the broadness of his shoulders, the swell of his chest under Jeonghan’s hands. And Jeonghan thinks, maybe they deserve to have each other, if just for this moment.

/

The truth is, Jeonghan and Wonwoo have always been more alike that Jeonghan would like to admit.

The Wonwoo that Jeonghan had first set his eyes on is barely a man, knobbly elbows and knees, straight out of high school. Wet behind the ears and attached to the hip of a best friend he mooned over. Jeonghan thought Wonwoo a bit pathetic, even as he went back to the dorm he shared with his own teenage daydream.

Two people cut from the same cloth, embellished a little different. Both fell in love early, fell in love hard. A love gone wrong, a love that never was; which one is better, it’s hard to say.

Even now, Jeonghan considers himself lucky. He has a great family, great friends, and a job already secured straight out of college. Perhaps the only thing left that the universe owes him is a little heartbreak, and he accepts it like everything else that he’s been given. When Seungcheol walks out of his life, Jeonghan figures that he probably deserves it.

It’s been easy enough to drown the ache in his chest with endless distractions, with work, with the burning of his lungs. Seeing Seungcheol with someone new is like picking a scab he didn’t even know he had. Now he’s got a flesh wound that’s not quite healed and a newfound sense of injustice, because how could someone like Wonwoo ever deserve this?

Jeonghan remembers nights like this too well: the imminent crash, Jeonghan sorting through rubble to talk Wonwoo down. The guilt was hard to escape then, when Jeonghan had been living Wonwoo’s dream. The responsibility felt crippling and there was little Jeonghan could do to mitigate it. Wonwoo, for all his height and breadth, always seemed so young, so helpless when it came to Soonyoung.

Jeonghan breathes Wonwoo in and accepts that he’s not far off. They’re only a year apart, after all.

/

“I’m sorry, hyung.”

They’re sitting side-by-side now, in the tub collecting moonlight and torrential feelings. Jeonghan’s chest feels damp with it.

“Stop apologizing,” Jeonghan snaps. Then, with finality, “I’m the one who’s sorry.”

“I accept, then,” Wonwoo says.

Jeonghan looks sidelong at Wonwoo’s profile.

“I haven’t apologized yet.”

Wonwoo barks out a laugh. “Hyung, you’re really something else.”

Wonwoo looks Jeonghan dead in the eyes and nods like he’s giving permission. Jeonghan does one better, turning to face Wonwoo fully and tugs Wonwoo’s arms until he does the same. It’s a tight fit, their knees knocking against the sides of the tub and against each other’s, but they make it work.

“Wonwoo, I’m sorry,” Jeonghan starts. He wants to say more but the words stick to his throat. He stares down at Wonwoo’s freezing hands, enveloped in his own. There’s nothing Jeonghan wants more than to drift out the window and disappear into the night sky like smoke. Instead he’s stuck in this room with his loneliness and Wonwoo, and the consequences of them both. Beyond that, the consequences in his own selfishness presenting under the guise of _taking care_ of someone; the immense shame he feels from it. Any apology couldn’t possibly suffice.

Jeonghan hardly realizes that he’s being pulled in, tucked against Wonwoo’s neck. Jeonghan’s fully enveloped when it fully registers, Wonwoo’s collarbone digging into his cheek. It’s painful in its tenderness, and nothing has ever hurt more. Jeonghan rasps against Wonwoo’s chest. He feels like he’s drowning.

Wonwoo rubs a soothing hand against Jeonghan’s back. It’s not until Wonwoo’s deep voice floats into Jeonghan’s ear with a consoling _it’s okay_ that something in Jeonghan’s brain unlocks.

“I’m sorry,” he says against Wonwoo’s chest, against Wonwoo’s heart. He repeats it like a mantra. _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry._

The room overflows with Jeonghan’s apologies, escaping through the window and swirling down the drain. Soon the bathtub is collecting nothing but moonlight once again.

Wonwoo’s hand is bracing the doorknob. He glances behind himself to make sure.

Jeonghan looks up at Wonwoo and wonders when he’d become so grown. Wonders when Wonwoo had started taking care of him.

Jeonghan smiles, nods.

Wonwoo opens the door.

**Author's Note:**

> just 2 bros,, chillin in a bathtub 
> 
> for context they're supposed to be at a house party for 95z grad but i couldn't find a way to include that organically without adding more scenes (im lazy!)
> 
> as always, thank u for reading <3 talk to me in the comments if you'd like


End file.
